Church Of Saint Edmund And Associated Boundary Wall, Railings And Gates

Anglican parish church built between 1870 and 1873 to designs by James Medland and Henry Taylor, a Manchester architectural practice, commissioned by Albert Hudson Royds. The church is constructed of irregularly coursed sandstone rubble with occasional bands of red sandstone, ashlar dressings, and slate roofs. The design combines Gothic Revival style with hints of Arts and Crafts detailing and extensive Freemasonry symbolism throughout.

Architectural Form and Plan

The church follows a Latin cross plan with a large square crossing tower that has a staircase and bell turret at its north-east corner. The nave is short and wide without aisles, featuring a west porch and west gallery accessed by a semi-circular stair turret in the north-west corner. Wide transepts extend from the crossing, with the south transept having its own porch. The chancel is accompanied by a Royds chapel to the south and a vestry to the north.

The interior is designed around geometric cubic forms: two cubes for the nave, one each for the crossing, chancel, and transepts, with a seventh cube representing the volume of the crossing tower above its inserted ceiling.

Exterior Features

The church sits on a deep battered plinth with stepped buttresses. The deep slate roofs have ashlar copings and gable finials rich in Freemasonry symbolism.

The nave comprises three bays with square-headed windows of one, two, and three lights featuring highly individual Decorated and Free Gothic tracery with hoodmoulds. The west windows have blank panels corresponding to the gallery inside. Above the projecting west porch, the west gable wall displays a rose window. The porch itself has a raked parapet and raked blind arcading with two traceried mandorlas on each side lighting the internal flight of steps that rises to the raised floor level. The porch entrance features a flattened ogee opening with a cusped panel above containing a relief carving of the martyrdom of Saint Edmund set in a mandorla. Decorative iron gates hang in front of the double wooden doors. The semi-circular north-west stair turret is castellated with a small turret and spire on its west side.

The transepts are two bays deep with similar square-headed windows in their west elevations and outer bays of their east elevations. The north transept gable contains three lancet-shaped windows. The outer single-light windows have star tracery, whilst the taller central two-light window is arranged in two tiers. Below this window is a relief carved panel commemorating the founder's parents, Clement and Jane Royds. The south transept gable features a pointed-arch window of three lights with quatrefoil tracery above, flanked by narrow bands of relief foliate carving. The projecting south porch resembles the west porch but has one and two-light windows in its side walls and a pointed arch entrance. Decorative iron gates also hang before its double wooden doors.

The crossing tower has angle buttresses that become clasping and diagonal at a lower level, with a projecting octagonal stair turret at the north-east corner. Each face displays square-shaped blind arcading, two large two-light windows with geometrical tracery interspersed with blind arches, crocketed banding, and decorative crenellations with crocketed corner pinnacles. The stair turret has a traceried bell-stage and small spire.

The chancel comprises two bays with stepped diagonal corner buttresses. The north wall has a similar square-headed single-light window. The pointed-arch east window contains five lights with Decorated tracery, carved voussoirs of alternating colours, and a hoodmould. The chancel roof is steeply pitched at the same height as the nave roof. The north vestry has one bay with a lower double-pitched roof and is approached by a flight of steps to a cusped doorway in the north wall. Its east gable wall contains three lancet-shaped windows in two tiers, with the central light taller than the others.

The Royds chapel has three bays with a lower double-pitched roof. Its south wall entrance doorway is flanked by columns with moulded bases and unusual diagonal moulding above the pointed arch, with a relief carving of the family coat of arms. Three square-headed single-light windows punctuate the south wall, and a larger three-light window with double triangle, or Seal of Solomon, tracery appears in the east gable wall. A narrow ashlar band above bears the relief-carved inscription "SEMPER PARATUS" (Always Ready).

Interior

The church is entered through either the west or south porches, both initially restricting the view—through the west gallery and organ case structure respectively—before opening into the main church body. The weight of the crossing tower appears to rest on four massive polished granite columns with moulded stone capitals, bases, and mid-point bands. The lantern that would have flooded the centre of the church with light is no longer visible, having been enclosed in 1911.

The chancel and Royds chapel have irregularly coursed ashlar stone walls with a three-bay arcade between them formed of polished granite columns with particularly finely carved foliated capitals. These areas have patterned woodblock flooring. The nave and transepts have plastered walls with stone flag floors.

The roofs represent a tour-de-force of massive joinery, particularly the chancel roof with its exaggerated hammerbeams decorated with foliate carving and notching that spring from individually foliated stone corbels with granite shafts.

A complete scheme of stained glass exists by Lavers, Barraud and Westlake, with the exception of the south transept window which once held a Te Deum exhibited in Vienna in 1887. The south side windows follow a Building theme, including scenes of Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel. The north side presents a Sacrifice theme with depictions of Abraham and Isaac and the Last Supper. The thematic climax appears in the Royds chapel east window, depicting Nehemiah, Ezra, the Masonic Tyler wielding a sword, and the Building of the Temple in Jerusalem, with a likeness of Albert Hudson Royds as one of the master masons. The chancel east window contains tiers of scenes from the Life and Passion of Christ, dedicated to the memory of Albert's three brothers who died in 1838, 1865, and 1871. Above this window is a small window shaped as a stained glass All-Seeing Eye.

The chancel features a stone reredos of the True Vine by Thomas Earp, integral with the building's stone and growing out over the architecture. It is deeply cut with the words "I AM THE" emerging from the foliage. In the north wall is an exaggerated ogee-headed doorway into the vestry with hoodmould and foliate carved spandrels. To the left is a dedication brass by the Reverend E W Gilbert using a variety of fonts and letter sizes, and to the right is a carved piscina dated 1896 in memory of Charles Norris, a vicar. The choir stalls have pierced quatrefoils.

In the north-east corner of the crossing stands an open tracery hexagonal oak pulpit on a square stone base with columns. The south-east corner of the crossing contains a lectern donated by Clement, the founder's son, in 1871. On an imperfect block of dark stone stands a perfect white cube of ashlar supporting three brass columns in the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders. Engraved on their bases are the symbolic tools of the Masonic Craft. On top is a horizontal brass tray fretted with pomegranates, lilies, and intertwined snakes, and to carry the bible is a pyramid formed out of set-squares and compasses.

The nave has a heavy timber west gallery with a modern lightweight screen erected beneath the balcony. The north transept contains a white marble font dated 1871 with a round bowl carved with the symbols of the Evangelists set on clustered columns at the base and supported by four angels kneeling on the capitals of clustered columns. The south transept contains the organ with two tower cases flanking the gable window and entrance doorway. The nave, transepts, and Royds chapel have contemporaneous pews with carved ends.

Boundary Features

The diamond-shaped churchyard is bounded by a coped stone wall with stone piers and iron railings, and moulded gate posts with trefoil decoration and iron gates.

Historical Context

Saint Edmund's Church was funded by Albert Hudson Royds in memory of his parents, Clement and Jane Royds, who had lived at nearby Falinge Hall, Rochdale. The Royds family were prominent local wool merchants who helped finance the Rochdale Canal and owned a local bank called Clement Royds and Company. Albert was a prominent Freemason, serving as Deputy Provincial Grand Master of the East Lancashire Lodges of Freemasons from 1856 to 1866, before assuming the same role when he moved to Worcestershire, and latterly Provincial Grand Master of Worcestershire. His Freemasonry had a huge influence upon the design of Saint Edmund's.

The Taylors were responsible for designing a number of churches in the north-west, many of which are listed. They include a group of five in Rochdale of which Saint Edmund's was the last: All Saints' Church, Foxholes Road (1865), Saint Mary's Church, School and Vicarage, Oldham Road (1865), Saint Peter's Church, Saint Peter's Street (1868), and the Church of Saint John the Evangelist, Market Street (1871). The design is acknowledged by many to be James Medland Taylor's masterpiece and was influenced by the brief from Royds and also the design input of the first incumbent, the Reverend E W Gilbert, artist and Freemason.

Saint Edmund's Church cost between £22,000 and £28,000 at a time when a decent church could be built for £4,000. Thomas Earp, the London architectural sculptor, produced the carvings, font, and reredos. He also provided significant amounts of sculpture at Rochdale Town Hall and Rochdale's medieval parish church, Saint Chad's Church, during this period. The reredos and dedication brass were designed by the Reverend E W Gilbert. The scheme of stained glass was by Lavers, Barraud and Westlake, and the church organ was manufactured for the church in 1871 by the leading organ builders William Hill and Son, who also built an organ for Manchester Cathedral in the same year. The ornamental iron doorway gates were designed by Messrs Hart, Beard and Company of London.

In 1887 J Murgatroyd advised that the crossing lantern be ceiled to combat complaints about down-draughts, though this does not appear to have been implemented until 1911. The Royds chapel was converted into a children's chapel in the early 20th century before being rededicated as a memorial chapel after World War II, with the children's chapel being relocated to the north transept. The font was then also moved into the north chapel.